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February 13 - March 3, 2025
This first crime broadcast is brief and focused on the essential elements. There will be time later to add additional details, sort out the order of events, and write lengthy reports. This first broadcast is driven by the immediacy of the moment; we’ve got to get the essentials out to our partners because the suspects in this case may still be trying to flee the area. There is a sense of ...
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Although Mark’s gospel contains the important details of Jesus’s life and ministry, it is brief, less ordered than the other gospels, and filled with “action” verbs and adjectives. There is a sense of urgency about it. This is what we might ...
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The accuracy of the account was more important to Mark than anything else; for all Mark knew, Jesus would return before there would be any need to write an ordered biography of sorts.
Both Matthew and Luke appear to be writing with a much different intent than Mark. Their accounts are more robust and ordered.
Matthew and Luke are more concerned about the “final report.”
MARK APPEARS TO BE PROTECTING KEY PLAYERS
Many careful readers of Mark’s gospel have observed there are several unidentified people described in his account. These anonymous characters are often in key positions in the narrative, yet Mark chose to leave them unnamed.
Given these eleven pieces of circumstantial evidence, what reasonable inference can be drawn about the dating of the Gospels?
First, we must account for the suspicious absence of several key historical events in the New Testament record:
The reasonable inference from the circumstantial evidence is the Gospels were written very early in history, at a time when the original eyewitnesses and gospel writers were still alive and could testify to what they had seen.
The circumstantial evidence supports an early dating for the Gospels. The gospel writers appear in history right where we would expect them to appear if they were, in fact, eyewitnesses. This early placement alone does not assure the Gospels are reliable accounts, but it keeps them “in the running” and becomes an important piece of circumstantial evidence, in and of itself, as we determine the reliability of the gospel writers.
As with any process of abductive reasoning, we need to examine the alternative possibilities to see if any of them are reasonable (based on evidence).
THE AUTHORS OF THE GOSPELS ARE ANONYMOUS
Some have argued the Gospels are late due to the fact none of the authors specifically identify themselves in the accounts.
The Gospels are not the only ancient documents failing to identify the author within the text of the manuscripts.
In fact, no one in antiquity ever attributed the Gospels to anyone other than the four traditionally accepted authors.
That’s a powerful statement, in and of itself, especially considering the fact early Christians consistently recognized, identified, and condemned the false writings of forgers who tried to credit false gospels to the apostolic eyewitnesses.
THE TEMPLE DESTRUCTION IS PREDICTED
THE ACCOUNTS ARE REPLETE WITH MIRACULOUS EVENTS
a literary discipline known as “form criticism.” Form critics attempt to classify portions of Scripture on the basis of their literary “type,” “pattern,” or “form.”
The form critics of history (a movement most popular in the mid-twentieth century) simply rejected the possibility any description of a miracle could be factually true.
THERE WAS A SECOND-CENTURY BISHOP IN ANTIOCH NAMED “THEOPHILUS”
LUKE AGREED WITH MUCH OF WHAT JOSEPHUS REPORTED
Titus Flavius Josephus, the first-century Roman-Jewish historian who lived from AD 37 to approximately AD 100 and wrote about life in the area of Palestine, including the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.
We can now employ some abductive reasoning as we try to determine which explanation related to dating is the most sensible.
When evaluating the gospel writers, the most reasonable inference from the evidence is an early date of authorship. Does this mean they are reliable? Not yet; there’s much more to consider. But the Gospels have passed the first test; their testimony appears early enough in history to confirm they were actually present to see what they said they saw.
THE GOSPEL WRITERS PROVIDED UNINTENTIONAL EYEWITNESS SUPPORT
THE GOSPEL WRITERS REFERENCED NAMES CORRECTLY
Jesus (Hebrew: Joshua) was one of these popular first-century names in Palestine, ranking sixth among men’s names.
The gospel accounts appear authentic from the “inside out.”
If the Gospels are true, we should also expect them to be corroborated externally.
The Gospels are
corroborated from the “outside in” by the testimony of ancient “reporting parties” who described what they knew to be true, even though they were not Christians and did not necessarily believe the testimony of the gospel writers.
These non-Christians were often hostile to the growing Christian movement and critical of the claims of the Gospels. Despite this, they affirmed many of ...
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reluctant admissions.
NONBIBLICAL EYEWITNESSES CORROBORATED THE GOSPELS
ancient observers and writers who were hostile to Christianity reluctantly admitted several key facts corroborating the claims of the Christian eyewitnesses, even though they denied Jesus was who He claimed to be.
some of these reluctant ...
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JOSEPHUS (AD 37–101) DESCRIBED JESUS
Josephus described the death of John the Baptist, in another he mentioned the execution of James (the brother of Jesus), and in a third passage he described Jesus as a “wise man.”
THALLUS (CA. AD 5–60) DESCRIBED JESUS
Thallus was a Samaritan historian who wrote an expansive (three-volume) account of the history of the Mediterranean area in the middle of the first century, only twenty years after Jesus’s crucifixion.
Like the writings of many ancient historians, much of his work is now lost to us. Another historian, Sextus Julius Africanus, wrote a text entitled History of the World in AD 221, however, and Africanus quot...
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TACITUS (AD 56–117) DESCRIBED JESUS
Cornelius Tacitus was known for his analysis and examination of historical documents and is among the most trusted of ancient historians.
He was a senator under Emperor Vespasian and was also ...
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MARA BAR-SERAPION (AD 70–UNK.) DESCRIBED JESUS
Sometime after AD 70, a Syrian philosopher named Mara Bar-Serapion, writing to encourage his son, compared the life and persecution of Jesus with that of other philosophers who were persecuted for their ideas.
PHLEGON (AD 80–140) DESCRIBED JESUS
Sextus Julius Africanus also wrote about a historian named Phlegon who penned a record of history in approximately AD 140. In his historical account, Phlegon also mentioned the darkness surrounding the crucifixion:
